Evaluating the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: perceived risk of COVID-19 infection and childhood trauma predict adult depressive symptoms in urban South Africa
This article has been Reviewed by the following groups
Listed in
- Evaluated articles (ScreenIT)
Abstract
Background
South Africa's national lockdown introduced serious threats to public mental health in a society where one in three individuals develops a psychiatric disorder during their life. We aimed to evaluate the mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic using a mixed-methods design.
Methods
This longitudinal study drew from a preexisting sample of 957 adults living in Soweto, a major township near Johannesburg. Psychological assessments were administered across two waves between August 2019 and March 2020 and during the first 6 weeks of the lockdown (late March–early May 2020). Interviews on COVID-19 experiences were administered in the second wave. Multiple regression models examined relationships between perceived COVID-19 risk and depression.
Results
Full data on perceived COVID-19 risk, depression, and covariates were available in 221 adults. In total, 14.5% of adults were at risk for depression. Higher perceived COVID-19 risk predicted greater depressive symptoms ( p < 0.001), particularly among adults with histories of childhood trauma, though this effect was marginally significant ( p = 0.063). Adults were about two times more likely to experience significant depressive symptoms for every one unit increase in perceived COVID-19 risk ( p = 0.021; 95% CI 1.10–3.39). Qualitative data identified potent experiences of anxiety, financial insecurity, fear of infection, and rumination.
Conclusions
Higher perceived risk of COVID-19 infection is associated with greater depressive symptoms during the first 6 weeks of quarantine. High rates of severe mental illness and low availability of mental healthcare amidst COVID-19 emphasize the need for immediate and accessible psychological resources.
Article activity feed
-
-
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.13.20130120: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Participants during the first wave of data collection were interviewed in their homes and provided informed consent.
IRB: The University of the Witwatersrand Human Research Ethics Council reviewed and approved the study.Randomization Participants were recruited based on a simple random sample of geographic coordinates within the boundaries of Soweto (n=957). Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable All participants were 25 years or older and represented a wide range of ages and socioeconomic status, though a majority of our sample were women (Table 1). Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.13.20130120: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: Participants during the first wave of data collection were interviewed in their homes and provided informed consent.
IRB: The University of the Witwatersrand Human Research Ethics Council reviewed and approved the study.Randomization Participants were recruited based on a simple random sample of geographic coordinates within the boundaries of Soweto (n=957). Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable All participants were 25 years or older and represented a wide range of ages and socioeconomic status, though a majority of our sample were women (Table 1). Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
-
